Anamosa City Council Votes To Lift Ban On Pit Bulls

According to KCRG, the Iowa city lifted a long-standing pit bull ban on Monday with a city council vote of 4-2.

Before the ordinance was repealed all dogs who look like pit bulls were banned from Anamosa, reports KWWL, unless the owner could prove that the canine was not predominantly pit bull.

Tides began to change last year when Chris Collins, who recently moved to the city from Illinois, was looking to adopt a pit bull puppy and found he couldn’t legally have one in his new home. In October 2017, he approached the city council about repealing the ban and spent months gathering evidence that supported his side from shelters, veterinarians and pit bull owners.

During this time, according to KWWL, Collins found that many people in Anamosa still owned pit bulls, but just kept the dogs in hiding.

“It doesn’t eliminate pit bulls. It causes people to go into hiding and the dogs aren’t socialized and they’re not taken to vets and if you have that, that’s a problem for any dog,” Collins told the station about the former ban.

The majority of the city council sided with Collins. The city’s clerk Tammy Coons told KWWL that the new ordinance, allowing pit bulls in public in Anamosa for the first time in decades, will take effect when it is published on April 5.

The recent repeal has local shelters hopeful that other cities in the area that also have pit bull bans will looking into getting rid of breed legislation as well, giving pit bull dogs better opportunities to find loving, forever homes.